Adjust, build and maintain

A WEEK-LONG course in basic wheelchair assembling, maintenance, assessments and prescriptions began in Lautoka yesterday for Fiji National University physiotherapy students and rehabilitation workers from the Health Ministry.

"We are teaching them how to adjust, build and maintain wheelchairs and ensure that people are personally trained to prescribe them, including proper measurements of the children and adults who will use these, in order to fit correctly," said Jill Maginnity, international program manager of the Cerebral Palsy Alliance, from Sydney, Australia.

Course co-ordinator Maria Waloki says they are working on assembling and prescribing 12 wheelchairs daily but will probably supply more for a list of recipients provided by various organisations.

"We thought to train them in the West because we haven't done training here before" she said.